Fall Quarter Deluge

I'm again inundated by Fall quarter madness, even though I'm keeping my course load below 20 credits. I seem to fill the available space by simply blowing my teaching and course work out of proportion, through a vicious process of perfectionism.

I'm teaching 16th century counterpoint this quarter, which takes quite a bit of time to grade. However, it is the pedagogical crux of Western Classical composition, and is thus constitutes extremely valuable teaching experience. Furthermore, it is interesting to pair teaching counterpoint with studying music cognition, particularly because of how the older language of music theory informs that of music cognition. Many of the concepts around attention that are made explicit in cognitive theories are implicit in traditional contrapuntal music theory. However, there are still questions of how ethnocentric musical cognitive science is toward Western Classical music, or even simply diatonic music built on the twelve-note equal tempered system, because so many experiments have been conducted on subjects that are musically acculturated in the West.

In other news, my juried premiere of mUTTERANCEs was a huge success, thanks to the amazing ensemble, conducted by Steve Schick. I will soon have audio and hopefully video available from this performance.